I’m sure now and then I will still blog occasionally, but probably as a continuation of this 30 day thing 🙂

Because Bry and Rachel practically forced me to do this. (Not really, but I want to).

Day 01 – A picture of yourself with ten facts

I was in a fancy french restaurant in NYC!

1. Music rules my world. Playing music, being surrounded by music, listening to music. All of it.

2. There are a lot of projects I am dying to start, but just don’t know how. I am tired of sitting around and spending my time on the internet.

3. I think I am too stupid for my family sometimes. Everyone in my family went to great schools, grad schools, or at least became something great and are doing something great with their lives. I probably won’t even get into grad school with my grades.

4. I secretly wish I was a fashion designer. I have tons of ideas for cool outfits. Once I learn how to sew, I plan on making a lot of my own clothes, and selling clothes on Etsy. But I need to learn how to sew first.

5. I am very antsy (hence the blog name). I always need to be moving around, travelling or keeping busy. If I stay in one place for too long, I get bored. Thank god for opportunities to get away for a lot of the weekends in the school year.

6. I have a need to be in charge and in control of most situations. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time trusting people. I also think that if I don’t take control, I will get left behind.

7. I’ve never played D&D. I realllly realllly want to though!

8. I dwell on the past a lot, and I think about the future too much. I need to live in the NOW.

9. I like discovering “new” things. Whether it’s a new show, a new hobby, or new music.

10. I used to have negative self esteem before I moved away to college. Can I make a vow to never let me raise my kids in an area like Burlingame?

There are many people who have many different view on Valentine’s Day.

There are those that love it, go all out on their loved one with gifts, cards, fancy dinner, etc. ; There are those that hate Valentine’s Day because they are single, and call it “Singles Awareness Day”; There are those that think it is just a stupid hallmark holiday, but still make a big deal about it; Then there are those who just…don’t care, and treat it like any other day.

I am one of those that just DON’T care. Maybe you might say “But you are in a happy long term relationship!” Yes, yes I am. And for the first 18 years of my life, including 18 valentines days, I was single. Did I care? No. It was just any another day. My mom would get my sister and I little gifts, and maybe we would go out for dinner as a family, but it was really just any other day, except everyone was either a lot more romantic, or a lot more depressed. I never let it bother me. Being single was just that. I didn’t need anyone to feel sorry for me, or to bring any extra unwanted attention to myself either.

This was my third valentines day with my boyfriend. Sure, we went out to dinner. So what? We go out to dinner at least once a week. It was just any normal night for us, really. Did we exchange gifts? Nope. We don’t need to spend any extra money on little crappy things we don’t need. I don’t need jewelery to know that my boyfriend loves me.

You know what I miss? Valentine’s Day parties in elementary school. We would decorate shoe boxes, and get valentine’s for everyone in our class that had a theme (Maybe animals, or scary movie characters, etc). Everyone would get a valentine, it was always lots of fun to open up our “mailboxes”. It was just a simple, fun time.

I’m not saying it’s not fun to be super cheesy and romantic, but when you are in a long term relationship, you don’t need all of the “show” to show off to everyone else. Hell, I would’ve had a great night if we cooked pasta and watched a movie in our pajamas.

Have you ever noticed the type of people that shop in certain stores? Well, today I’m going to write about that.

Here in lovely Humboldt County (Mainly excluding this to Arcata/Eureka area) we are limited on all kinds of shopping we can do. For groceries, if you live in Arcata, you most likely do most of your shopping at Safeway, Wildberries, the Arcata Co-Op, or if you are lucky and get a ride, WinCo (which is located in Eureka).

Safeway is your average run of the mill grocery store. (Equivalent of Albertson’s, Lucky, Vons, Ralphs, Rays, Path Mark, etc.) Upon entering a Safeway, you will see everyone. Depending on the time of day, you get Moms and Dads with their kids, college students looking for a midnight munchie, and sometimes a bum or two. Personally, I don’t really shop at safeway, unless I need something quick (i.e. need something for a recipie) or a mixer for beverages, or whatever.

I do most of my shopping at WinCo.

This is NOT the Eureka WinCo!

For those of you that don’t know what WinCo is, it is a giant 24 hour grocery store that is located in the upper western US. The inside looks like this.

Basically a Costco JUST for food.

Winco is what I call a “shopping experience”. You can never just get in and get out. I always spend at LEAST an hour everytime I go to WinCo. Even if I know exactly what I need, and where everything is. There is always something forgotten that I need to run across the store to grab, and I always like walking through all the aisles, because I always find something that I had forgotten to put on the list. The most fun part about WinCo? The people who shop there. Now, I might be some kind of hypocrite because I shop at WinCo, but only because it’s cheap ( Most people do for this reason). Most of the people that can be seen at the Eureka WinCo…are ,shall we say, tweakers. I say most because I know non-tweakers who shop at WinCo, but a majority of the people that you might see walking around probably just smoked crack in the bathroom. On top of that, everyone thinks it’s still 1995 and that Bill Clinton is still president.

This guy will be really pissed if you do drugs.

Not only will he be pissed, but he if you do drugs, he will also use his garden shears to cut off your balls, if you don’t it’s his mullet. The choice is yours.

ANYWAYS, going into WinCo is like jumping into a time machine. Don’t look the children in the eyes. DON’T LOOK THEM IN THE EYES. But they have awesome prices, so it’s always tricky going there. I never go alone. I wanted to start a site “people of winco” but as opposed to Wal-Mart being an attractive for strange freaks everywhere, it seems that just the Eureka WinCo is strange.

Next, I tackle the Arcata sector of the North Coast Co Op.

Arcata Co-Op

My boyfriend is Vegan and I am vegetarian, so we can get most of our food at WinCo, but we usually will go to the Co-Op as well. The Co-Op isn’t as expensive as Wildberries (A local, organic grocery), so this is our next best option. I like the fact that they are local, but they carry a wide variety of vegan alternative products. But, because of their “organic and local” viewpoints, instead of tweakers, we get hippies. I fit in a lot more at the Co-Op with my reusable bags than at WinCo.

The Co-Op is basically our Whole Foods/Trader Joes, but mostly cheaper because it’s a locally based shop.

For some, Halloween is a *special* time they can dress up like a slut, be someone they aren’t, dress crazy or whatever. For me, it’s honestly just another day. I mean, it’s “Halloween” and stuff, but I dress crazy all the time..and wear whatever I want. For me, it’s not about partying until I puke. Oh, on a side note, I dressed as Willow from Buffy for Halloween.

Alana (me) dressed as Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Pumpkins are fun for ALL of Autumn, which is why they will be mostly sitting there until Thanksgiving break. As long as the life your living makes YOU happy, that’s all that should matter. Going out to please others is a waste of space, and you should be doing what you want. Sure, I was feeling icky yesterday, so I didn’t go to the parade, but I wasn’t bummed all day…Edward and I had a Buffy Marathon, and watched Goldfinger, then I went next door and watched Killer Klowns from Outer Space (terrible movie). And that makes me HAPPY. It would just be even better if I had trick or treaters. But for some, they would have been really upset that they weren’t tagged in 10000 pictures on facebook of them looking like a slutty version of Snow White with a red party cup.

Also, the fact that Halloween is on a Sunday. I’m not trying to be a mom, and say that it’s Halloween, so everyone should go stay home instead of go out and get trashed, but school does take a priority in my mind, and I wasn’t about to leave my boyfriend at home while I went out partying because I don’t have class until 4pm.

So, does that make me a loser that I stayed home? Maybe it does, but I am well rested and not sick, as opposed to being out on the Plaza all night, which would’ve made me feel worse.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old too fast, but Halloween is more than just getting drunk. It’s about carving pumpkins and roasting seeds, and maybe staying home, and giving candy out to kids (I live on the side of town that doesn’t HAVE kids, so for now I can’t really do that) It’s REALLY also the first day growing up that felt like Autumn. It was always really warm, up until the night of Halloween. (Not here in Humboldt, but back in Burlingame). I could get into religious stuff, but I won’t.

And now for something completely different…

So, this semester has gone from calm to crazy in a matter of months. I know, it ALWAYS does, but everything has just gotten a lot more crazy. I quit my job, which I think I already talked about in previous posts, but whatever, because my life just got too hectic, and the short number of hours I was working just didn’t make it worth it.

I actually have been writing,(just not here) but it’s mostly been creative writing. I hadn’t really wrote creatively in a long time, and it feels great to be active again. I’m writing a collaborative story with my friend Kaly. Oringally, we were with each other at school everyday when we wrote together, so it made it easy to keep everything together, but since the internetz exist, there are programs that make writing long distance easy.

First we tried email. That really didn’t work, all of our chapters got confused. Then, this time around, we decided to try Google Docs. It’s PERFECT. All you need is an account, and you can use google docs. It’s share feature makes it so you can have private documents, but still share whatever you want. I haven’t even been writing there for a long time…I’ve been so busy with school projects and house stuff, that I just don’t have time.

I’ve figured out my schedule for next semester. It’s looking good, all major classes and one GE that pretty much counts as a major class! And…no Friday classes!

Let me ask you something. When you were a baby, you probably didn’t drink Coca Cola out of a bottle, did you? Nope, that’s what I thought. You parents probably aren’t Child Development majors, they probably read a couple baby books, or maybe they didn’t read baby books at all. It is rather common knowledge that drinking soda is bad for you, no matter how old you are.

The other day in my Psychology Class, we were talking about infant Nutrition, and my teacher mentioned something about one time, she saw a mother give her child coca cola in a bottle. I was almost shocked by this fact. In our day and age, people have a common knowledge about how to treat their children. Not everyone, there are still abused children, and dumb parents. I’m not saying this doesn’t exist.

So, the fact that I was so shocked by this motion isn’t too surprising. I guess it was just an initial reaction, and once I thought about it I realized there were highly uneducated people in the world, but just because they are uneducated, doesn’t mean they don’t know that soda is bad for them and their kids. This one girl in my class was shocked at my shocked reaction, she actually got really pissed for some reason, it was strange.

In other news, the rains have started, which is a wonderful thing. I was tired of not rain. The only reason why rain is annoying, is walking to and from school in it.

I know I haven’t written in forever. I’ve been really busy since my last blog. My cousins from Delaware came out to visit for a week. We took them around SF and surrounding areas, then we went to Yosemite for 3 days, so I was VERY busy actually.

Yosemite was lovely. Usually, I go in November, so I’m not used to the heat, but with going in summer I got to experience rafting along the Merced river, which is only open June – July. We stayed at Camp Curry, which was also a first experience for me, because usually we stay at the Lodge.

Then, I came back up to Humboldt and have been busy getting re-settled into my apartment, THEN SCHOOL STARTED.

So, I promise from now on, just to myself, to start blogging regularly. Life, music, fashion WHATEVER. I just need to complete this, because I want to talk about other stuff, but feel obliged to finish my travel blog.

AND NOW…back to Thailand.

When we left off, we were on our way to Phuket. You’ve heard of it. You don’t have to look this one up in Google maps. Phuket is a very popular resort destination. Just because it’s low season in most of Thailand, Phuket is not included in this.

Australians LOVE Phuket, I supposed.

So I was told we were going to stay at a hotel called The Katathani (because we were staying on Kata Beach). I looked up the website, http://www.katathani.com/ . I tried not to look up most of the websites, but I couldn’t really resist. It looks really nice, right?

RIGHT.

So that first day, we had a lot of travelling to do. We flew from Chiang Rai to Bangkok, and from Bangkok to Phuket. We were flying Thai Airlines, and we got an upgrade randomly to “Royal Silk” which is the equivalent to Business Class. They served us fresh cool towels, and we got our soda served to us in fancy glasses. It was awesome.

Arriving in Phuket was HELL though. Once you leave out the exit doors of the Airport, you are immediately bombarded by taxi drivers throwing signs and yelling in Thai at your face. Luckily, we set it up so that the hotel could pick us up and not have to worry about finding a reliable taxi driver.

So, the van we got to ride in was really nice. Nothing like our private van in Bangkok, but it was nice enough. Stadium style seating, water and cool towels. It wasn’t too long of a drive. Maybe at the longest an hour.

Upon arrival at the Katathani, we got greeted with another jasmine lei, which is a good sign I suppose. The lobby was really nice too. Maybe this place won’t be so bad…yeah right.

Let’s follow the bellboy to our room! Oh…it’s down this weird dark hallway…With one window at the end and fluorescent lighting..um are we in prison? Ok..our rooms…small, yet a view of the pool kind of and the beach kind of. Eh…it’ll do I guess.

-The pool was fine, though a little salty at some times (not that I was drinking the water, just that it gets on your mouth sometimes…)

-There were not enough chairs for the amount of people there, and we had to pay for chairs at the beach because Kata beach is public.

It just overall…sucked.

The first night, we hung out at the hotel. LAME.

The second night, we went to SIMON PHUKET! Yes folks, the place of all places to see the lady boys of Phuket perform, or so we thought. Upon entering this magical kingdom, instead of “cabaret style” which is what we were told, we were sat in fancy stadium seating, which was comfortable, but slightly awkward.

The show was like…1960s Vegas Glamor, meets drunken karaoke on a hot summer day…some of the acts were fabulous, others were rather dull…we weren’t allowed to to take any pictures during the show.

After the show, all the “Ladies” lined up along the exit, waving at people to come take pictures with them. Little did we know, was that they can legally ask for money for each picture, person, whatever. The one person we took a picture with, wasn’t even a picture, it was a video clip cause my Dad only had our flip cam out. We didn’t know that they wanted us to pay them…100 baht per person! 100 baht is equivalent to 3 USD (around at least).

The next day we left Kata Beach and Phuket (thank the GODS), to continue our journey on the island of Koh Lanta.

To get to Koh Lanta, we first had to take a 3 hour or so car ride to a dock.

From the dock, we had to take an hour boat ride. This was absolutely GORGEOUS. If you’ve played The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, it looked just LIKE the ocean! All the little islands scattered around, some inhabitable, some just rocky with some trees. Once we arrived at the dock in Koh Lanta, we had to take *another* van to the hotel. This was a very interesting drive, because this was the real Thailand. This is where people lived, people farmed, people had families. Koh Lanta is a mostly Muslim island, and the people who inhabit the island are very family oriented, and often times people live their whole lives without leaving the island.

This was the real vacation we were looking for. Up until this point, we were very active, either walking around for miles a day in Tokyo or Bangkok. Not relaxing stuff, fun, but NOT relaxing.

The Pimilai was the exact opposite of anywhere else we had been so far on this trip. An outdoor based resort, we stayed in a very exclusive suite right off the beach. LITERALLY. I think I will make a picasa account or something, and post some of my favorite pictures from all over.

I had an irrational fear of a tsunami the whole time we were there, though. I think we were there for 7 days but it might have been 9. I’m not sure, the whole time was a glaze.

Instead of being packed to the brim, the place was practically empty. There were two pools, an upper and a lower. We mostly hung out at the lower pool, because it was more “Family Friendly” so to speak.

Most people that stayed at the Pimilai were newlyweds, and they stayed near the upper pool, which had strict “No Splash Rules”. SCREW THAT.

Also, the lower pool was closer to the ocean, which was INCREDIBLE. Have you ever swam in a HOT ocean? Probably not. The only fear with swimming in the ocean was rough currents sometimes, because Summer is Thailand’s off season due to Monsoon Season.

There’s just so much to say about my Thailand experience. I can say that my view on that side of the world has changed dramatically. People are happy with their lifestyles. They like living with their families, they like staying on the same island their whole life.

A really great book I just finished that is about India, not about Thailand, is called “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga. It is an incredible story about how a poor child can bring his way up in the world. In Thailand, we hear lots of success stories like this one. A taxi driver on Koh Lanta was telling us about how he started as nothing. He taught himself to drive, he made enough money to buy a nice new truck. He learned English, not through school, but through his customers.

This kind of mentality just doesn’t exist in America. Success means what school did you go to, who do work for, what kind of car do you drive…

Why can’t success mean happiness?

Why can’t success mean I do what I want, and I am happy with that. I have enough money to survive.

For me, when I look to the future, I see success as having a job that I am HAPPY with, having money to survive, and hopefully travel. I see myself as married, raising kids that are happy. Living where I want to.